+100000 for this feature! I'd add more zeros if it wasn't going to get a little silly...
With the disclaimer that so far, I'm loving much of Wave offers (thank you!) some input from me...
Similar to everyone else chiming in, I have an array of reoccurring bills across monthly, quarterly and annual timelines. From rent, utilities and communications, to memberships, insurances and registrations. Manual entry is significantly time consuming and depending on my mood, ranges from tedious to utterly frustrating! Entering the same fields again and again and again, oh my goodness, what a time sucker.
A couple of things to keep in mind if you (please-please) decide to develop this feature...
Like @Yoda, amounts are either fixed (such as rent) or vary slightly based on usage (such a telephone and utilities).
For variable bills, suggest it would be great to assign an estimated amount with the ability to adjust once a bill has actually been received. This would be fantastic from a forecasting perspective.
On a side note, I'd also love the ability to email bills into Wave. Not necessarily with OCR functionality (fully appreciate this is complex), but rather to store my source documents.
Really hope you'll add this your roadmap! Sooner the better!
@Zeyad BinSanad said:
How do I create a Recurring Bills? such as monthly rental Bills or monthly mobile bill..etc
I wonder if there is any update. I think recurring bills is not just about saving time for create bill every month. It also help to project the expenses in the further, so to help business to estimate the cash flow.
Recurring bills is a must have feature and I hope Wave could update soon.
I appreciate your attention and the wonder work you have done.
Thanks for taking the time to provide such thorough and insightful feedback! Especially the bill-upload/email idea; it would be a great complement for the receipts tool. I'm curious about the impact of variable bills (from an accrual accounting standpoint) and how the accounting logic works in Wave, and if that would be possible. That said, if we could pull off an estimated amount that doesn't mess with the A/P, then that would be a game changer!
Been a wave member for a long time, but I just started really trying to use it and I also was surprised to find this feature missing. Like everyone else, I have a handful of bills I pay each month, and while entering the data manually isn't all that hard or even time consuming, it would help with cashflow forecasting if the system would account for these bills without me having to do the data entry manually.
I've been using Wave for about a year now and my biggest annoyance with it is not being able to create recurring bills. Having this feature would really make my monthly accounting time a lot easier. Then all that would be missing is pulling in time entries from Toggl (but that's a discussion for another thread).
I've been using Wave for about 10 hours now and my first impressions are very positive. I'm a UX/UI Product Designer and I really appreciate the clean look and feel (wish there was a dark mode though). I too feel that a recurring bills option would be useful, - Toggl integration and also a connection to the leading new wave of Challenger banks here in the UK - Starling Bank - would be nice. I would also like to see a secondary colour introduced in the Transactions List (Red for expense, Amber for Accounts Receivable perhaps?). Keep up the good work!
Yes, a recurring bill feature for us would be great too - being able to schedule even annual bills acts as a reminder, and could feed through to a "predicted cash flow" chart to show what's expected to go out in the next month etc. Also saving having to retype the same monthly bill again and again would be a big time saver.
YES...PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE implement this feature soon. It IS time consuming to do this every month. And everyone has monthly/annual bills that do not change (i.e. subscriptions & dues, apps, site hosting, etc). I am currently tracking my monthly/annual bills with a different program, just to make sure I don't forget any, and that seems a bit crazy to not be able to keep all accounting together in one platform. Other than that, I LOVE Wave!
Recurring bills is a MUCH needed feature! I agree with other commenters, I would use this WAY more than recurring invoices. My clients never owe me the same amount from month to month.
But I probably have at least 20 recurring bills each month (coworking, utilities, software subscriptions, etc.). Why would I want to enter them all manually? My bank isn't in the list of connected institutions, so I have to upload my monthly statements manually, and then I have to go through and set the categories for each transaction. It's a LOT of busy work that I'd prefer not to waste my billable time on.
I could have sworn this was released earlier this year! I didn't use it at the time because I'd already MANUALLY entered in my bills for the year. So I went to use it today, and whaddyaknow, it's not a feature! I might be going crazy!
Like everyone else here, I would use this!!!!
As a small business owner, I have bills that recur every single month. They are a projected set of expenses that I need to pay in order to stay in business - some monthly (i.e. lease, utilities), some quarterly (i.e. taxes), and some annually (i.e. vehicle registration, professional dues). This is a tedious process to add these in manually. This feature would enable users, such as small business owners, to track their recurring expenses automatically, forecast future expenses as it compares to future revenue, and generally have a better grasp on the present and future financial health of the business.
It just make sense to have recurring bills just like having recurring invoices,
examples.
isp expense : same amount every month.
mobile: same amount every month, unless you surpass the data limits.
utility bills: will vary each month
equipment, office etc rent: same each month
and so on.
This is sorely needed! It is making me hold off on transferring my 2 main companies over to Wave. I have so far only moved a side business over to test it out, coming from QuickBooks Online. There is no way I can move them without recurring bills! Please Add!!
Thanks to all for continuing to share your thoughts. I have two questions for the group:
What is your primary motivation for entering these bills every month rather than categorize a transactions when it gets pulled in from your bank? Is it to get a sense of cash flow? Is it for maintaining a greater level of detail? Is it so your Accounts Payable numbers are always clear to you? We've seen millions of users come and go, but we don't like to presume for those on this thread. Of course, some folks like @jennyshushu don't have a bank that allows automatic data feeds, so we appreciate that reality and know it's frustrating to manually input the data.
How often do your recurring bills vary in amount? Do you find that your bills are the same amount each month, or do they vary from month-to-month because of usage (like a utility)? If they vary, how do you imagine the system should respond to the need to collect more information from you?
Thanks for putting in the energy so far to share your insights with us. We appreciate it as we look to prioritize our development efforts.
I am sure if Wave put it to a vote amongst users in app or on social media etc that the majority would be in favour of a recurring bill function - if you offer recurring invoicing - why not do the same with bills? Would really help save me time and assist with forecasting etc.
Hi all, thanks for your feedback! To be totally clear, we're aware in interest in this issue. Members of different teams all around Wave have visibility into and regularly engage in this forum. We see you!
Our goal with this section of the forum is less to track demand and more to engage with you regarding how you use Wave, what your experience is as you perform necessary tasks, what things get repetitive, and so on. At the moment, I don't have any news regarding a recurring bills feature.
In this case, I totally appreciate that this can be repetitive to the point of being a nuisance. In the case of expenses where you don't need to create a bill, you might consider uploading expenses in bulk, or adding and then duplicating transactions. We could potentially look at some kind of automation for bill creation in the future.
In short: I want to reiterate that we're having conversations about how we can make this easier, and we'll be sure to share any news when we have it. If there are any details you'd like to share about how you work that you think would be helpful, or if you'd like to participate in research and testing of new things as we build them, please don't hesitate to say so!
@Mani I see there could be a problem matching a scheduled bill with a downloaded transaction. There would need to be match mechanism to link a transaction that is imported with one that is already entered automatically.
Many recurring bills are fixed amounts like Insurance, Rent, Mortgage and other Monthly Payments.
If these enter Automatically on a Schedule for example, once per week, bi-weekly or monthly, it does indeed give a greater sense of Cash Flow.
In the event the amount changes, one would simply edit the transaction to correct the amount. For example Cell Phone bills vary a bit but a simple edit to the amount would fix that.
I was thinking about this. Has anyone tried making an Excel Spreadsheet with their recurring bills and importing it at the beginning of each month? Sorry I am new to Wave but I see transaction import is an option.
Charlotte, I think it is just that users are not even understanding how you cannot have a recurring bills feature. It is just as important as recurring invoices and would work the same exact way. It is the most basic of basic accounting features I can remember having it in the 90's in the early versions of Quickbooks. Seems like a huge oversight here and is making what is really amazing software crippled so badly that it is forcing me continue to look for alternatives. The fact that is not even on the roadmap is mind boggling for something so simple. Time saving keeps coming up in this discussion but it really is not about saving time, it is more about knowing that any time you look at your income versus expenses forecast, you know exactly where you are. You don't have too worry that you forgot to enter a bill. Especially with so many not sending paper bills anymore, it is a basic necessity to run a small business. Thanks for listening.
> @Mani said: > Thanks to all for continuing to share your thoughts. I have two questions for the group: > > > * What is your primary motivation for entering these bills every month rather than categorize a transactions when it gets pulled in from your bank? Is it to get a sense of cash flow? Is it for maintaining a greater level of detail? Is it so your Accounts Payable numbers are always clear to you? We've seen millions of users come and go, but we don't like to presume for those on this thread. Of course, some folks like @jennyshushu don't have a bank that allows automatic data feeds, so we appreciate that reality and know it's frustrating to manually input the data. > > > * How often do your recurring bills vary in amount? Do you find that your bills are the same amount each month, or do they vary from month-to-month because of usage (like a utility)? If they vary, how do you imagine the system should respond to the need to collect more information from you? > > > > Thanks for putting in the energy so far to share your insights with us. We appreciate it as we look to prioritize our development efforts. > > CC: @dnkubica, @tnperona, @Seajays, @Crundi, @bcollins, @goto10
We have about 12 recurring expenses each month and about half of them are vary from month to month. Thanks for considering this essential feature on priority.
Being able to see cash flow is part of it (rent, phones, internet) those don't fluctuate much if at all. I could see the system creating the bill base on a template and if I needed, I could edit the bill auto created that month before payment was added. If the bill as a whole went up (rent increase) I would then edit the template to affect all future bills.
The other use case (for me anyway) I have web hosting that will come and go. We will set up a test server while developing for a client. I don't want GL accounts for all of those, but I need to account for them and be able to tie them to a client.
Comments
+100000 for this feature! I'd add more zeros if it wasn't going to get a little silly...
With the disclaimer that so far, I'm loving much of Wave offers (thank you!) some input from me...
Similar to everyone else chiming in, I have an array of reoccurring bills across monthly, quarterly and annual timelines. From rent, utilities and communications, to memberships, insurances and registrations. Manual entry is significantly time consuming and depending on my mood, ranges from tedious to utterly frustrating! Entering the same fields again and again and again, oh my goodness, what a time sucker.
A couple of things to keep in mind if you (please-please) decide to develop this feature...
Like @Yoda, amounts are either fixed (such as rent) or vary slightly based on usage (such a telephone and utilities).
For variable bills, suggest it would be great to assign an estimated amount with the ability to adjust once a bill has actually been received. This would be fantastic from a forecasting perspective.
On a side note, I'd also love the ability to email bills into Wave. Not necessarily with OCR functionality (fully appreciate this is complex), but rather to store my source documents.
Really hope you'll add this your roadmap! Sooner the better!
With sincere thanks for your consideration...
I wonder if there is any update. I think recurring bills is not just about saving time for create bill every month. It also help to project the expenses in the further, so to help business to estimate the cash flow.
Recurring bills is a must have feature and I hope Wave could update soon.
I appreciate your attention and the wonder work you have done.
Hey @wildblue
Thanks for taking the time to provide such thorough and insightful feedback! Especially the bill-upload/email idea; it would be a great complement for the receipts tool. I'm curious about the impact of variable bills (from an accrual accounting standpoint) and how the accounting logic works in Wave, and if that would be possible. That said, if we could pull off an estimated amount that doesn't mess with the A/P, then that would be a game changer!
Keep it coming everyone!
Hey @Lahiru! I'm going to submit this feedback now to our Product Team, I definitely agree this would be a huge timesaving feature.
Been a wave member for a long time, but I just started really trying to use it and I also was surprised to find this feature missing. Like everyone else, I have a handful of bills I pay each month, and while entering the data manually isn't all that hard or even time consuming, it would help with cashflow forecasting if the system would account for these bills without me having to do the data entry manually.
Another request here for recurring expenses. It would help so much with budgeting and forecasting.
I've been using Wave for about a year now and my biggest annoyance with it is not being able to create recurring bills. Having this feature would really make my monthly accounting time a lot easier. Then all that would be missing is pulling in time entries from Toggl (but that's a discussion for another thread).
I've been using Wave for about 10 hours now and my first impressions are very positive. I'm a UX/UI Product Designer and I really appreciate the clean look and feel (wish there was a dark mode though). I too feel that a recurring bills option would be useful, - Toggl integration and also a connection to the leading new wave of Challenger banks here in the UK - Starling Bank - would be nice. I would also like to see a secondary colour introduced in the Transactions List (Red for expense, Amber for Accounts Receivable perhaps?). Keep up the good work!
I would love this too!
Would really help, as I have lots of standard monthly payments which go out as the same amount every month.
I've used Wave for about 4 or 5 years and I'd love recurring billing to be a feature! it would help so much... PLEASE!!
Yes, a recurring bill feature for us would be great too - being able to schedule even annual bills acts as a reminder, and could feed through to a "predicted cash flow" chart to show what's expected to go out in the next month etc. Also saving having to retype the same monthly bill again and again would be a big time saver.
Heya. Just found this post as I was looking for exactly this feature. It would be really great to have!
Thanks for providing such a great tool at no cost, though!
Edit @KWes ROFL
YES...PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE implement this feature soon. It IS time consuming to do this every month. And everyone has monthly/annual bills that do not change (i.e. subscriptions & dues, apps, site hosting, etc). I am currently tracking my monthly/annual bills with a different program, just to make sure I don't forget any, and that seems a bit crazy to not be able to keep all accounting together in one platform. Other than that, I LOVE Wave!
Recurring bills is a MUCH needed feature! I agree with other commenters, I would use this WAY more than recurring invoices. My clients never owe me the same amount from month to month.
But I probably have at least 20 recurring bills each month (coworking, utilities, software subscriptions, etc.). Why would I want to enter them all manually? My bank isn't in the list of connected institutions, so I have to upload my monthly statements manually, and then I have to go through and set the categories for each transaction. It's a LOT of busy work that I'd prefer not to waste my billable time on.
Thanks for considering this!
I could have sworn this was released earlier this year! I didn't use it at the time because I'd already MANUALLY entered in my bills for the year. So I went to use it today, and whaddyaknow, it's not a feature! I might be going crazy!
Like everyone else here, I would use this!!!!
As a small business owner, I have bills that recur every single month. They are a projected set of expenses that I need to pay in order to stay in business - some monthly (i.e. lease, utilities), some quarterly (i.e. taxes), and some annually (i.e. vehicle registration, professional dues). This is a tedious process to add these in manually. This feature would enable users, such as small business owners, to track their recurring expenses automatically, forecast future expenses as it compares to future revenue, and generally have a better grasp on the present and future financial health of the business.
I need this feature, too.
It just make sense to have recurring bills just like having recurring invoices,
examples.
isp expense : same amount every month.
mobile: same amount every month, unless you surpass the data limits.
utility bills: will vary each month
equipment, office etc rent: same each month
and so on.
regards
This is sorely needed! It is making me hold off on transferring my 2 main companies over to Wave. I have so far only moved a side business over to test it out, coming from QuickBooks Online. There is no way I can move them without recurring bills! Please Add!!
Thanks to all for continuing to share your thoughts. I have two questions for the group:
What is your primary motivation for entering these bills every month rather than categorize a transactions when it gets pulled in from your bank? Is it to get a sense of cash flow? Is it for maintaining a greater level of detail? Is it so your Accounts Payable numbers are always clear to you? We've seen millions of users come and go, but we don't like to presume for those on this thread. Of course, some folks like @jennyshushu don't have a bank that allows automatic data feeds, so we appreciate that reality and know it's frustrating to manually input the data.
How often do your recurring bills vary in amount? Do you find that your bills are the same amount each month, or do they vary from month-to-month because of usage (like a utility)? If they vary, how do you imagine the system should respond to the need to collect more information from you?
Thanks for putting in the energy so far to share your insights with us. We appreciate it as we look to prioritize our development efforts.
CC: @dnkubica, @tnperona, @Seajays, @Crundi, @bcollins, @goto10
Hi there!
Like a few already said, thank you for offering us a FREE and great accounting software!
Just so you know, this is greatly appreciated...
That said, I'm very surprised it is not possible to create recurring bill/expense.
You can add my name on the list of those who would like to see this feature available!
Thanks!!!
I am sure if Wave put it to a vote amongst users in app or on social media etc that the majority would be in favour of a recurring bill function - if you offer recurring invoicing - why not do the same with bills? Would really help save me time and assist with forecasting etc.
Hi all, thanks for your feedback! To be totally clear, we're aware in interest in this issue. Members of different teams all around Wave have visibility into and regularly engage in this forum. We see you!
Our goal with this section of the forum is less to track demand and more to engage with you regarding how you use Wave, what your experience is as you perform necessary tasks, what things get repetitive, and so on. At the moment, I don't have any news regarding a recurring bills feature.
In this case, I totally appreciate that this can be repetitive to the point of being a nuisance. In the case of expenses where you don't need to create a bill, you might consider uploading expenses in bulk, or adding and then duplicating transactions. We could potentially look at some kind of automation for bill creation in the future.
In short: I want to reiterate that we're having conversations about how we can make this easier, and we'll be sure to share any news when we have it. If there are any details you'd like to share about how you work that you think would be helpful, or if you'd like to participate in research and testing of new things as we build them, please don't hesitate to say so!
@Mani I see there could be a problem matching a scheduled bill with a downloaded transaction. There would need to be match mechanism to link a transaction that is imported with one that is already entered automatically.
Many recurring bills are fixed amounts like Insurance, Rent, Mortgage and other Monthly Payments.
If these enter Automatically on a Schedule for example, once per week, bi-weekly or monthly, it does indeed give a greater sense of Cash Flow.
In the event the amount changes, one would simply edit the transaction to correct the amount. For example Cell Phone bills vary a bit but a simple edit to the amount would fix that.
Charlotte, I think it is just that users are not even understanding how you cannot have a recurring bills feature. It is just as important as recurring invoices and would work the same exact way. It is the most basic of basic accounting features I can remember having it in the 90's in the early versions of Quickbooks. Seems like a huge oversight here and is making what is really amazing software crippled so badly that it is forcing me continue to look for alternatives. The fact that is not even on the roadmap is mind boggling for something so simple. Time saving keeps coming up in this discussion but it really is not about saving time, it is more about knowing that any time you look at your income versus expenses forecast, you know exactly where you are. You don't have too worry that you forgot to enter a bill. Especially with so many not sending paper bills anymore, it is a basic necessity to run a small business. Thanks for listening.
> Thanks to all for continuing to share your thoughts. I have two questions for the group:
>
>
> * What is your primary motivation for entering these bills every month rather than categorize a transactions when it gets pulled in from your bank? Is it to get a sense of cash flow? Is it for maintaining a greater level of detail? Is it so your Accounts Payable numbers are always clear to you? We've seen millions of users come and go, but we don't like to presume for those on this thread. Of course, some folks like @jennyshushu don't have a bank that allows automatic data feeds, so we appreciate that reality and know it's frustrating to manually input the data.
>
>
> * How often do your recurring bills vary in amount? Do you find that your bills are the same amount each month, or do they vary from month-to-month because of usage (like a utility)? If they vary, how do you imagine the system should respond to the need to collect more information from you?
>
>
>
> Thanks for putting in the energy so far to share your insights with us. We appreciate it as we look to prioritize our development efforts.
>
> CC: @dnkubica, @tnperona, @Seajays, @Crundi, @bcollins, @goto10
We have about 12 recurring expenses each month and about half of them are vary from month to month.
Thanks for considering this essential feature on priority.
@Mani
Being able to see cash flow is part of it (rent, phones, internet) those don't fluctuate much if at all. I could see the system creating the bill base on a template and if I needed, I could edit the bill auto created that month before payment was added. If the bill as a whole went up (rent increase) I would then edit the template to affect all future bills.
The other use case (for me anyway) I have web hosting that will come and go. We will set up a test server while developing for a client. I don't want GL accounts for all of those, but I need to account for them and be able to tie them to a client.